Unfortunately, openSUSE didn't work very well out of the box with either of
the notebook computers. Display brightness controls on both machines didn't
work properly, and for some reason the graphics detection routines couldn't
pick up the native resolution of either machine's display. Both machines
also didn't suspend and resume reliably, but they did come up from
hibernation without problems. I also had trouble getting openSUSE to install
on the Dell (Dell) XPS, a problem due to the way grub chose to address the
boot drive.

I tried out the closed-source binary-only nVidia drivers on the Thinkpad,
too, and while they worked fine, there were other persistent issues (like
the suspend/resume problem) that weren't addressed.

Power management in PCLinuxOS is a little shaky, though. It didn't work
completely out-of-the-box in any of my test systems, and the instructions to
get sleep and suspend working correctly were useless, since they didn't
correspond to any obvious sequence of actions. Also, the online
documentation for the distribution itself (as opposed to docs for, say, KDE)
is rather spotty.

With the VAIO, I had trouble getting X to detect the proper display size
until I used the generic VESA driver (after which it worked perfectly).
Another letdown on the VAIO was that the SD card slot didn't seem to work
out of the box, although its suspend/resume functions did work. The
Thinkpad's graphics worked fine, but it would only hibernate and not suspend
to RAM. Sadly, the Dell (Dell) refused to even boot the Mandriva
installation CD properly, no matter what kernel parameters I passed.

The Thinkpad wasn't as smooth sailing. I couldn't even get the Fedora live
CD to boot without passing some special boot parameters and doing a good
deal of post-install hacking. Apparently this is due to the nVidia graphics
card on the T61, which needs a proprietary driver from a separate repository
to work correctly. I suspect suspend didn't work on the Thinkpad for the
same reason; only hibernate was available, but it worked fine.

Getting wireless networking going required a bit of digging -- I had to run
the MEPIS Network Assistant and then set up the KNetworkManager, but once
done, it worked without a hitch. While the SD card reader worked perfectly,
suspend to RAM or disk didn't work on the VAIO by default. I got it working,
though, thanks to a hint from a pop-up that appeared when suspend failed.
The Thinkpad suspended to disk fine, but didn't suspend to memory until I
added nVidia-specific drivers; the desktop machine suffered the same fate.

The VAIO's widescreen display came up properly right out of the box, but its
wireless card (an Intel (NSDQ: INTC) 2200BG) wasn't recognized. The
Thinkpad, too, had trouble booting, probably due to its display hardware.
Consequently, you may want to try the live CD of CentOS to determine what
kind of hoops you'll have to jump through to get everything working.

</quote>

** Posted from [url]http://www.teranews.com[/url] **

05-05-2008, 03:30 PM

unix

Re: Information week tests 7 distros. "You'll have to jump through hoops to get everything working"

On Mon, 5 May 2008 11:21:29 -0400, Ezekiel wrote:
[color=blue]
> [url]http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207200145[/url]
>
> <quote>
>
> Unfortunately, openSUSE didn't work very well out of the box with either of
> the notebook computers. Display brightness controls on both machines didn't
> work properly, and for some reason the graphics detection routines couldn't
> pick up the native resolution of either machine's display. Both machines
> also didn't suspend and resume reliably, but they did come up from
> hibernation without problems. I also had trouble getting openSUSE to install
> on the Dell (Dell) XPS, a problem due to the way grub chose to address the
> boot drive.
>
> I tried out the closed-source binary-only nVidia drivers on the Thinkpad,
> too, and while they worked fine, there were other persistent issues (like
> the suspend/resume problem) that weren't addressed.
>
> Power management in PCLinuxOS is a little shaky, though. It didn't work
> completely out-of-the-box in any of my test systems, and the instructions to
> get sleep and suspend working correctly were useless, since they didn't
> correspond to any obvious sequence of actions. Also, the online
> documentation for the distribution itself (as opposed to docs for, say, KDE)
> is rather spotty.
>
> With the VAIO, I had trouble getting X to detect the proper display size
> until I used the generic VESA driver (after which it worked perfectly).
> Another letdown on the VAIO was that the SD card slot didn't seem to work
> out of the box, although its suspend/resume functions did work. The
> Thinkpad's graphics worked fine, but it would only hibernate and not suspend
> to RAM. Sadly, the Dell (Dell) refused to even boot the Mandriva
> installation CD properly, no matter what kernel parameters I passed.
>
> The Thinkpad wasn't as smooth sailing. I couldn't even get the Fedora live
> CD to boot without passing some special boot parameters and doing a good
> deal of post-install hacking. Apparently this is due to the nVidia graphics
> card on the T61, which needs a proprietary driver from a separate repository
> to work correctly. I suspect suspend didn't work on the Thinkpad for the
> same reason; only hibernate was available, but it worked fine.
>
> Getting wireless networking going required a bit of digging -- I had to run
> the MEPIS Network Assistant and then set up the KNetworkManager, but once
> done, it worked without a hitch. While the SD card reader worked perfectly,
> suspend to RAM or disk didn't work on the VAIO by default. I got it working,
> though, thanks to a hint from a pop-up that appeared when suspend failed.
> The Thinkpad suspended to disk fine, but didn't suspend to memory until I
> added nVidia-specific drivers; the desktop machine suffered the same fate.
>
> The VAIO's widescreen display came up properly right out of the box, but its
> wireless card (an Intel (NSDQ: INTC) 2200BG) wasn't recognized. The
> Thinkpad, too, had trouble booting, probably due to its display hardware.
> Consequently, you may want to try the live CD of CentOS to determine what
> kind of hoops you'll have to jump through to get everything working.
>
>
> </quote>[/color]

/Sarcasm on

That's impossible??
According to the Linux 'advocates' in comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linux just
works.

So why should we believe an 'unknown' publication like Information Week,
when we have all of this first hand information from the Linux advocates in
COLA?

/Sarcasm off

The truth is that even after 10+ years, Linux is still a confused mess that
is simply ignored by desktop users because it just does not work very well.

The average user wouldn't stand a chance getting any of the above to work.
They would become frustrated and toss the Linux CD in the trash can which
is probably why Linux is still sitting a 0.6 percent of the desktop market
even after 10 years.

If you Linux loons really want Linux to get someplace on the desktop you
have to settle on one distribution, make it solid, get some financial
backing and professional support and get working.

Currently you are doing the worst possible thing and that is creating one
defective distribution after another. These distributions often fix
problems that other distributions may have but generally they create
additional problems of their own and the cycle continues.

--
Moshe Goldfarb
Collector of soaps from around the globe.
Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:
[url]http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/[/url]

05-05-2008, 03:34 PM

unix

Re: Information week tests 7 distros. "You'll have to jump through hoops to get everything working"

Re: Information week tests 7 distros. "You'll have to jump through hoops to get everything working"

"Ezekiel" <a@b.com> writes:
[color=blue]
> [url]http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207200145[/url]
>
> <quote>
>
> Unfortunately, openSUSE didn't work very well out of the box with either of
> the notebook computers. Display brightness controls on both machines didn't
> work properly, and for some reason the graphics detection routines couldn't
> pick up the native resolution of either machine's display. Both machines
> also didn't suspend and resume reliably, but they did come up from
> hibernation without problems. I also had trouble getting openSUSE to install
> on the Dell (Dell) XPS, a problem due to the way grub chose to address the
> boot drive.
>
> I tried out the closed-source binary-only nVidia drivers on the Thinkpad,
> too, and while they worked fine, there were other persistent issues (like
> the suspend/resume problem) that weren't addressed.
>
> Power management in PCLinuxOS is a little shaky, though. It didn't
> work[/color]

A recurring theme. When I pointed out the kernel developers realise a
complete redesign is necessary I was called a liar and the usual crowd
claimed it "worked for them". Sigh.

05-06-2008, 03:20 PM

unix

Re: Information week tests 7 distros. "You'll have to jump through hoops to get everything working"

On Tue, 06 May 2008 14:03:08 +0200, Hadron wrote:
[color=blue]
> "Ezekiel" <a@b.com> writes:
>[color=green]
>> [url]http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/linux/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207200145[/url]
>>
>> <quote>
>>
>> Unfortunately, openSUSE didn't work very well out of the box with either of
>> the notebook computers. Display brightness controls on both machines didn't
>> work properly, and for some reason the graphics detection routines couldn't
>> pick up the native resolution of either machine's display. Both machines
>> also didn't suspend and resume reliably, but they did come up from
>> hibernation without problems. I also had trouble getting openSUSE to install
>> on the Dell (Dell) XPS, a problem due to the way grub chose to address the
>> boot drive.
>>
>> I tried out the closed-source binary-only nVidia drivers on the Thinkpad,
>> too, and while they worked fine, there were other persistent issues (like
>> the suspend/resume problem) that weren't addressed.
>>
>> Power management in PCLinuxOS is a little shaky, though. It didn't
>> work[/color]
>
> A recurring theme. When I pointed out the kernel developers realise a
> complete redesign is necessary I was called a liar and the usual crowd
> claimed it "worked for them". Sigh.[/color]